Isaiah 5 begins with a very clear image.  “I will sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill” (v. 1).  Aside from singing to a beloved one, we definitely have a vineyard in view.

So guess what?  I started thinking of vineyards!

Certainly, there are places in the world noted for their vineyards and the wine produced by them.  Here are just a few: France, Spain, Italy, Germany (by the way, they’ve had a little success with beer), Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and others.  Then there’s the United States.  Of course, the most celebrated wines come from California.  Other states make the list, including Tennessee.  There’s a winery less than ten minutes from my Mom’s house.

When we moved to the Empire State, we discovered there’s more than a few vineyards here.  Traveling on I-90 between Buffalo and Erie, PA, you will see some wine-producing country in Chautauqua County.  And then, the Finger Lakes!

[back to nature and a little strand]

When we served churches near Keuka Lake, there were vineyards opposite two places where we lived.  At one, the vineyard had gone back to nature, being overgrown.  At the other, there was a vineyard in operation.  We even had a strand of grapes behind the house!

So what does the prophet have to say about the vineyard and the expectation of fine wine?  There are some sobering words.

It seems the beloved took all the proper steps in planting the vineyard.  The beloved one “dug it and cleared it of stones…  planted it with choice vines…  built a watchtower…  hewed out a wine vat” (v. 2).  The preparations have been made.  Well, grapes have indeed grown, but they’re rotten.

With a sense of extreme exasperation, questions are cried out.  “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?  When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield rotten grapes?” (v. 4).

I can imagine one lover saying to another, “After all I’ve done for you, and this is how you repay me?”

I want to change gears for a moment and point some other notable examples of vineyards in the Bible.  In Psalm 80, we see a quick reference to Israel’s history.  “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.  You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land” (vv. 8-9).  It was glorious.  However, wickedness destroyed it.  There follows a plea for restoration and new growth.

In the gospels, Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants.  (I’m following Matthew’s version, 21:33-41.)  A rich man leaves them in charge of his vineyard while he travels far away.  When harvest time comes, he sends servants to collect the grapes.  The tenants beat and kill them.  They do the same when another group is sent.  The landowner then sends his son, thinking they will respect him.  They kill him, too!  Finally, the tenants are put “to a miserable death” (v. 41).

A similar fate of destruction is pronounced on the vineyard we’ve been considering.  Verses 5 and 6 contain some less than tasty consequences.  “I will remove its hedge…  I will make it a wasteland…  it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns…”  It sounds like the vineyard we lived near that had reverted back to nature.  At least the birds and the deer enjoyed it.

Here’s a nice final touch.  “I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.”  Now that’s harsh!

The passage on the vineyard ends with verse 7, and it has an exclamation of pain and perhaps missed opportunity.  It is set up with this preface, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished garden.”

(Here’s an FYI.  Judah was the southern kingdom, and Israel was the northern.  They split apart after the death of Solomon, some two centuries earlier.  Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in the 730s and 720s BC.  The prophet Isaiah, who lived in Judah, was active during this time.)

The people of Judah are his cherished garden, or his pleasant plant—his delectable plant.

As you might know, I love to use puns, plays on words.  In that regard, I am following one of the finest and noblest scriptural traditions.  The Hebrew scriptures are chock full of puns, especially in the writings of the prophets.  The final line of verse 7 is a good, yet tragic, example.

He expected justice but saw bloodshed; righteousness but heard a cry!  It doesn’t really carry over into English.  It loses something in the translation.  It loses a lot in the translation.

The Lord expected justice— מׅשְׁפָּט(mishpat).  But the Lord saw bloodshed— מׅשְׁפָּח (mishpach).  Expected mishpat.  But saw mishpach.

The Lord expected righteousness— צְדָקָה(tsdedaqa).  But the Lord heard a cry— צְעָקָה (tse`aqa).  Expected tsdedaqa.  But heard tse`aqa.

That is the power of the pun.  At the same time, we have an example of the power of poetry.  Poetry can express a nuance, a surprising discovery, a reimagining that a more prosaic approach fails to convey.  It can express a wonderful and delightful turn of phrase, even a mind-expanding trip down the rabbit hole.

The rest of the chapter features a laundry list of social injustices, of ill-treatments of fellow human beings when fidelity to the Lord is cast aside.

It might be asked, considering the array of choices, why focus on just two verses?  When we read the Bible with earnest intent, it is a common thing to have words jump out at you.  Actually, it should be expected to happen on a not uncommon basis.

In this case, that applies to verses 18 and 19.  Here’s how it appears in the New English Bible.  “Shame on you! you who drag wickedness along like a tethered sheep and sin like a heifer on a rope, who say, ‘Let the Lord make haste, let him speed up his work for us to see it, let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel be soon fulfilled, so that we may know it.’”

Here’s how Eugene Peterson put it in his paraphrase, The Message.  “Doom to you who use lies to sell evil, who haul sin to market by the truckload, Who say, ‘What’s God waiting for?  Let him get a move on so we can see it.  Whatever The Holy of Israel has cooked up, we’d like to check it out.’”

If it hasn’t already become crystal clear, the folks hauling those carts are being chastised for their evil words and evil doings.  Sentences beginning with “woe,” “shame,” and “doom” usually aren’t followed by words we want to hear.  Dragging iniquity with cords of falsehood, dragging sin like one would do with a cart, can only be perceived as a failure of character—having a moral compass in need of repair, or at least a bit of tweaking.

However, is it possible to envision something a bit less dire?  Could dragging along that cart suggest another type of fault?

At least one thing I would propose it shows is an inability, or unwillingness, to release the past.  And that could comprise any number of things.  Perhaps we have become comfortable with how things have “always” been done.  I will definitely admit, change is not always easy.

Nonetheless, perhaps we become too comfortable.  One of the crazy things about comfort is we can even get used to the boring and the bad.  We can have a strange security in the insecure.  For example, we can expect—we can become familiar with—abusive relationships.  We might think we don’t deserve any better.

I want to use myself as a case study.

Our retirement from the Presbyterian Church (USA) presents a dramatic new chapter in our lives.  For 26 years, I have been a pastor in a parish setting.  It has provided me with a level of comfort.  That will be changing.

Certainly, different churches have their own qualities, their own DNA.  But my job description, for the most part, has remained the same.  Now, I can’t rely on the security of how I did things before.  Clearly, I have learned things along the way.  I will use them in the future.

Still, I am being asked to take a leap of faith.  It is both daunting and delightful.

I’ve been speaking of my own situation.  However, all of us have stories that are analogous in one way or another.  It might deal with family situations, career, moving to a different part of the country, a different part of the word, saying goodbye, saying hello.

It might deal with congregations.  As just noted, change is not always easy.  In fact, it can be scary or tedious or offensive—offensive in the sense of welcoming those we do not wish to welcome.  It can be a choosing to survive, or even to thrive.  Sometimes it might even call for dramatic decisions, a genuine leap of faith.  Such is the power of change.

There can also be impatience.  We might want God to hurry up, to speed up the process so we can see it.  We might say along with those the prophet is admonishing, “Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment, that we may know it!”  God, get a move on!  I want to jump to the conclusion.  This in-between stuff is too messy.  Here’s an idea, Lord.  Why don’t you make the decision for me?

So we’re back to dragging that cart.

If we hang on to that cart, if we hang on to those ropes, it’s safe to say we haven’t been caring for the vineyard, which is the house of Israel.  It’s safe to say we haven’t been tending God’s cherished garden, which are the people of Judah.  To the extent we identify ourselves with the covenant of the Lord, that also includes us!  We haven’t been caring for ourselves the way God intends.

To the extent we hang on to that cart, that we hang on to those ropes, to that same extent we sin.  There’s something to understand about sin.  In both the Hebrew ( חָטָא, chata) and Greek (άμαρτανω, hamartanō) words, sin means “missing the mark.”  It means throwing the dart at the bullseye and winding up in the outer ring—maybe even missing the dartboard altogether.  It doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of irredeemable reprobates.

If it seems like all of this is too heavy a burden to bear, here’s some good news.  We have someone who will take the load.  Our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, promises, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).  Jesus knew all about vineyards.  Tending them is hard work.  That’s true in the literal sense and in the symbolic, spiritual sense.

He continues, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (vv. 29-30).  And this, coming from the one who turned water into wine, and it was fine wine at that.

That last line, in which the people want the Lord’s plan to hurry up so they can know it, “know” has a special meaning.  It is “know,” in the sense of “experiencing.”  It’s not just head knowledge; it is knowledge appealing to all we are.  We must know God—we must know Jesus—so that we can more fully invite others to join the covenant family.  We can lend a hand in tending the vineyard with heart and soul.

Psalm 51 has been called “one of the most moving prayers in the Old Testament.”[1]  It hits all the right notes.  There’s a full admission of guilt, acknowledgment that no pardon is deserved, and loving joy because God does forgive.  There’s an expressed awareness that “unless a radical change is wrought by God, the future will be but a repetition of the past.”  That’s why the psalmist “appeals to God for a clean heart and a new spirit.”[2]

This is the psalm which appears in the liturgy with Ash Wednesday, which by the way probably never makes the list on anyone’s favorite holidays.  There is a cruel and kind revelation about our very existence, who we are, down to the bone.  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  There can be no pretensions.

A key verse in our psalm is verse 14.  The psalmist seems to be on the precipice of some kind of horror, something to be dreaded.  “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,” is the cry, “O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.”

Opinions differ as to what “bloodshed” here is all about.  Is it something the psalmist has done—or something feared yet to happen?  Is it a comment about the whole nation, something we frequently see in Old Testament prayers?  I would say there’s room for both.

Still, there is a painful, agonizing note sounded by an individual.  The caption of the psalm refers to it as King David’s plea for pardon after raping Bathsheba.  The prophet Nathan has confronted the king and exposed his guilt.  There’s nothing to say.  He has been caught red-handed, so to speak.

Lest we think we are free of the shedding of blood, reflect on this.  Even with inflation, have you ever thought of how so many items are priced so cheaply?   Consider the overwhelmingly vast number of goods coming from a single country.  We support that country, which commits plenty of bloodshed, both literally and figuratively.

Recall verse 1, how this whole thing gets kicked off: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.”  The Hebrew word for “abundant mercy” (or in the New Jerusalem Bible, “tenderness”) is רַחַם (raham).  It means “womb.”  O God, according to your compassion for your unborn child…

Recalling David’s violation of Bathsheba, the Lord can be seen (or is seen) as a female who has suffered that grievous harm—one who has been violated in that most violent way.

The king can’t undo the past; he knows a radically new way is called for.

As we recite the psalm on Ash Wednesday, we should note not all of the psalm is used.  We stop at verse 17.  Here are verses 16 and 17: “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

As we scroll through this poem, time and time again, we see calls for radical openness.  I encourage you to read every verse and then pause and reflect on it.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity…

Against you, you alone, have I sinned…

You desire truth in the inward being…

Create in me a clean heart…

Restore to me the joy of your salvation…  (I think the point is made.)

For that vision, for that reality to come alive, some radical change—as already mentioned—must come to pass.  That sounds great, but then here are verses 18 and 19.  These last two verses are often seen as having been added later, as a sort of appendix.

“Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem; then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”  We might ask, “Okay, so what’s the point?”  It sounds like a perfectly acceptable and necessary part of repentance.

I would suggest there is a chasm between these two verses and what has gone before.  I know not everyone agrees with me.  They might say I’m overstating the case, pretending I’m looking at the Grand Canyon, as opposed to a babbling brook.  And that’s fine.  But see for yourself.

On the one hand, “For you have no delight in sacrifice…”  And on the other, “Then you will delight in right sacrifices…”

On the one hand, “If I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased…”  And on the other, “You will delight in burnt offerings…”

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit.”

With those last two verses, there is a sense of “but then…  There’s nothing wrong with the way we served God in the past.”

At the Missionaries of Prayer website, there’s a post titled, “Prophetic Word—Why am I Attracted to This?”[3]

Why am I attracted to this?  That’s a question for each of us.

Why am I attracted to this?  Suggestions are offered.  Why am I attracted to this church…  this person…  this place?  What do I really want?

“You need to know the answer to this, for yourself.  Because this will help to make or break you.  Only you know the answer.”

This is hard.  It is deeply uncomfortable.  I want the safe.  I want the secure.  I want what verses 18 and 19 promise: the tried and true.  I don’t like being dangled over the cliff, held only by spirit, held only by the Spirit.  How badly I want to say, “In with the old, out with the new.”

Last week, we had a dinner in which a young woman invited many of her friends.  Some of them were sharing experiences they had with the Holy Spirit.  I appreciated a comment by another young woman who said she was asking her husband if they should leave.  With these other people uttering such profound insights (my words, not hers), she said she felt “shallow.”  She felt inadequate.  As I just suggested, I have had feelings like that.

The author of the article says, “We need to grow up.  Christianity is not comfortable.  Growth and change are not comfortable so if every now and then your pastor is not preaching a message that stretches you and causes you to think about your life or calls you to repentance, then something is wrong.  It means you’re only hearing the parts of the Bible that makes you feel good but there are large sections not being preached.  And that should bother you.”

And that should bother me.  As the apostle Paul said, “woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” (1 Co 9:16).  That’s a stark warning.

God forbid I give you easy answers.  God forbid I don’t encourage painful and probing questions.

Adam Neder, professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, says, “If our way of talking about God leaves [us] unaware of the threat he poses to our lives, perhaps that is because we no longer perceive the threat he poses to our lives.”[4]  Can we see God as a threat to our lives?  What could that mean?

I would suggest we often—or perhaps always—believe our lives are limited to the way we sleepwalk through life.  We don’t necessarily have to get into some deep philosophical discussion.  A trip to the grocery store can be quite revealing.  We see people rushing around, impatient, not smiling, without joy.  What would happen if we conducted an experiment?  What would happen if we decided to slow down?

The late Thomas Merton wrote, “Our ordinary waking life is a bare existence in which, most of the time, we seem to be absent from ourselves and from reality because we are involved in the vain preoccupations which dog the steps of every living [person].  But there are times when we seem suddenly to awake and discover the full meaning of our own present reality…  In the light of such an experience it is easy to see the futility of all the trifles that occupy our minds.  We recapture something of the calm and balance that ought always to be ours, and we understand that life is far too great a gift to be squandered on anything less than perfection.”[5]

Thank the Lord that God is a threat to that substitute for real life, our life hidden in Christ.  We fear the dangerous and delightful depth expressed by the worship chorus, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. / Cast me not away from Thy presence, O Lord / and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. / Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, / and renew a right spirit within me.”

At the beginning I used the quote, “unless a radical change is wrought by God, the future will be but a repetition of the past.”  The psalmist ready to move on.  There’s no looking back.  The past has involved David’s being a rapist and a murderer.  The threat God poses is seen and welcomed.  “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice” (v. 8).

To insert a New Testament perspective: “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” (2 Co 5:17).

So, what now?  As the song says, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going, / And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing. / That’s how it is with God’s love once you’ve experienced it; / You spread His love to everyone; You want to pass it on.”  Pass it on.  “I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you” (v. 13).

We aren’t made righteous in the eyes of God just for the fun of it.  If we have truly experienced it, our lives will be changed.  We won’t be able to do otherwise.  We need not feel inadequate, as did the young woman at our dinner.  We are made more than sufficient, more than conquerors.

[1] A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1992), 389.

[2] Anderson, 398.

[3] www.missionariesofprayer.org/2022/10/prophetic-word-why-am-i-attracted-to-this/

[4] Adam Neder, “Theology as a Way of Life,” Theology Matters 28:3 (Summer 2022), 4.

[5] Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951), 10.

Presbyterians don’t emphasize this so much, but when I was in the Assemblies of God, I heard plenty of sermons that asked, “Have you had your Damascus road experience?”  Can you pinpoint a moment in your life in which you could say, “I once was lost, but now am found.  Here I am, Lord!”

The awakening of faith can be a very subjective thing.  It can be hard to pinpoint from the outside.  For many, it is a gradual growing awareness.  That is, if it happens at all.  But however it does happen, it is a gift.  Sometimes it is a gift delivered in a drastic fashion.

For the Lord to get Paul’s attention, it took something quite drastic!  (By the way, I’m using the name “Paul,” since Saul was later known by that name.)

As we begin Acts 9 with his description, we’re actually picking up from a verse in chapter 8.  “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (v. 3).  And now, with verse 1: “Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”

There is a sadly comical aspect to this portrayal of Paul.  Honestly, doesn’t this guy have anything better to do?  He’s pictured like a brute beast, like a wild animal.  This guy has some major anger issues!  Like the bull in a china shop, he’s been doing some serious damage.

Paul has been hurting and terrorizing those whom, in the future, he will love dearly as his sisters and his brothers.  But as I say, that’s in the future!

There is one he is hurting most of all.  We’re told, “He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’  He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’  The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’” (vv. 4-5).  The risen and ascended Lord passionately identifies with his people.  Because of his great love, what hurts them brings him torment.

How different is Paul’s response from that of Ananias in verse 10.  Where Paul says, “Who are you, Lord?” Ananias says, “Here I am, Lord.”

It isn’t that Paul doesn’t understand the faith.  He is very well versed.  Later in Acts, he says that he has “belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee” (26:5).  He knows this stuff backwards and forwards!  He has the data, but he lacks the experience.  That is, he lacks the experience of God’s love.

For me, that’s something I really value from my time with the Assemblies of God.  For someone who lived too much in his head, the Pentecostals were a needed corrective.

At an interim ministry training event, a video was presented of the late Edwin Friedman, who was a rabbi and a therapist.  In the video, he is commenting on the fallacy of expertise.  He is talking about our emphasis on information and technique.  Or perhaps I should say the overemphasis on information and technique—the overemphasis on experts.  It’s possible to be paralyzed by continuously gathering information before we take any meaningful action.  Sometimes we need to learn to trust ourselves.

[more words of wisdom from the late great Neil Peart--the drummer from Rush, if you didn't know]

Friedman speaks of the pursuit of data as a form of substance abuse.  I had never thought of it that way.  Too often, I have greatly abused that substance!  It can have the downside of making one indecisive.

Data and experience can be phrased, for lack of better terms, as head knowledge and heart knowledge, or spirit knowledge.

Graham Standish served as a Presbyterian pastor for many years.  He is now the executive director of a spiritual counseling center.  He published an article called “Shepherding SBNR Sheep: How to Create a Church for the Spiritual but Not Religious.”[1]

For devoted churchgoers, “spiritual but not religious” is often seen as those unwilling to make a commitment.  It actually has many connotations, clearly, some more positive than others.  Those who identify themselves that way often speak of their distrust of the church, of institutionalized religion, and so on.  Some perceive a lack of authenticity.  Some look at the church and see a bunch of phonies.  To what extent that perception meets reality is a different discussion.

Standish begins his article with a sort of confession.  Speaking of the time he was a pastor, he said, “I privately classify myself as being ‘spiritual but not religious’ (SBNR).  I know it doesn’t make sense, but somehow it feels right.  No matter how long I’ve been the pastor of a church, I’ve always been more ‘in’ religion than ‘of’ religion.”  I imagine he would still classify himself as such.

It looks like he’s using the word “religion” to mean the data it contains.  He’s using it to express doctrinal content.  There’s nothing wrong with doctrine, in and of itself.  It’s necessary; it’s simply a body of teachings.  But if doctrine is separated from a loving experience of God, it can become deceptive and even dangerous.

I’ve never really considered myself to be religious.  I guess that’s a quality I share with our SBNR friends.  To me, being called “religious” is not necessarily a compliment.  In his zeal to imprison members of the early church, Paul is definitely religious.

Those who are in religion, but not of religion, “want to experience what’s true rather than be told what is true.”  Standish talks about one of his parishioners who said, “Most churches tell you what to think.  [Our church] encourages you to think.”

I should warn you.  When we encourage others to think, we may hear some stuff we would rather not hear.  In today’s passage, there are two fellows who hear stuff they don’t want to hear.  There’s Paul, hearing how he’s been horribly wrong, and he’s been persecuting his Lord.  And then there’s Ananias, who hears that it’s his job to welcome Paul.  (“Lord, you do know that he’s done some really bad stuff?”)

Standish addresses something we’re familiar with: asking people certain questions in order to join the church, “such as ‘Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior?’  There’s nothing wrong with expecting this, although it puts the SBNR in a quandary: do I say ‘yes,’ even if I don’t know quite what that means, or do I wait till I know what it means?  And what if I never know what that means?”  He says that “healthy relationships lead more people to an experience of the holy than does rational theologizing.”

Trying to convince people into faith by using a line of reasoning is often not the best approach.  And yes, arguing with, and shaming people doesn’t work so well in demonstrating the love of Jesus.   In our scripture, Ananias says, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (v. 17).  Vision and the Spirit go together.

Look at how our passage ends.  “For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (vv. 19-20).  So not only is Paul’s sight restored—not only do the blinders come off—but Paul finds his voice.  Paul, in effect, joins those who are in religion, but not of religion.  That’s what happens when we experience what the data is about.

I want to mention one more thing that’s in the article.  It deals with how open we are to those unfamiliar with our language, our jargon.  We should realize “that while Christian language and [expressions] help those within a religious tradition to speak a common language of faith, that…language also creates a barrier” for those who don’t understand it.  “In effect, it helps us if we are willing learn the language of other faiths, and to learn how to translate certain concepts into our own language.”

When I was in seminary, I had Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).  What that often entails is a student chaplaincy at a hospital, which is what I did.  One of the things our supervisor would often ask of us would be to express our faith without using “God talk.”  That is, don’t use religious words.  When you’re in a hospital, you’re dealing with the entire public, people from all backgrounds.

Another way of looking at it would be: can you talk about faith by focusing on the experience, rather than the data?

On the matter of God talk, there is something I have mentioned before.  It deals with an invitation Banu and I received to stay a couple of days at a camp and conference center about an hour’s drive east of Pittsburgh.  We were asked to do some workshops while there.

During one session, I issued that challenge to the folks at camp: describe your faith without using God talk.  For instance, what does “Jesus saves” mean?

Some of them gladly welcomed the test and gave it a good “faith” shot!  For others—not so much.  And when I started pushing them on it, some got irritated; it was even written on their faces.  Some of them let me know their displeasure.  They were not happy with me.

I observed how reaching out to those outside the four walls might mean learning a different language.  I don’t know if they didn’t believe me or just didn’t care.  It does require change.  Do you know what we call something that doesn’t change?  Dead.  Life, by its very nature (even at the chemical level), requires change.  That’s a word for us, also.

My guess would be they just wanted to have a nice, relaxing weekend with their friends.  They didn’t need to be given this bit of uncomfortable work.  In my defense, this little exercise lasted maybe twenty minutes, but that was enough to tick them off.

(There is a nice postscript to this story.  That night, they broke out the board games.  Even the folks who got annoyed with me were happy when I joined in.  Playing games can be incredibly therapeutic!)

How can we talk about our own experience?  How can we tell our story?  We all have them, and none of them are any less valid than those of others.

The poster boy for a story of willingness to change is Saul, later known as Paul.  His decision to embrace change was a literal turn from death, at least, the death of others.  Verse 19 says, “For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus.”  These were the same people for which he begged permission to place under arrest and drag back to Jerusalem (where they would not be treated like honored guests).

We could make the argument that Paul himself was on the road to death.  Be careful with whom you ally yourself.  Choose life or choose death: blessing or curse.

Still, back to my previous question.  How about our experience?  Are we in religion?  Are we of religion?  Are there elements of both?  As I said earlier, can we talk about faith without using God talk?

Here are questions that go a bit deeper.  How are we when it comes to letting God work through us?  How are we at being a vessel of the Spirit?

Ananias laid hands on him and prayed.  “And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.  Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength” (vv. 18-19).

Let us eat the food given by God which strengthens us on the way.

[1] alban.org/archive/shepherding-sbnr-sheep-how-to-create-a-church-for-the-spiritual-but-not-religious/

I have a little story regarding my choice of scriptures.  On Christmas morning, I was about to read the Bible, and I had a thought about where to go.  Mind you, I don’t recommend this to anyone.  Still, I had the urge to just open the Bible and see what page presented itself.  Without paying any attention, I opened the book to a random spot and let my finger fall.

Lo, and behold, it fell on Proverbs 7.  It’s the story of a woman sometimes called Dame Folly, or Madam Folly.  I reflected and thought, “This doesn’t seem very Christmassy.”  Immediately after that, in chapter 8, we have a portrait of Lady Wisdom, as she’s usually named.  Foolishness is followed by wisdom.  I read both chapters and concluded, “This might be something to follow up on.”

The opening chapters of the book of Proverbs present a father teaching his son about wisdom.  It’s the imparting of knowledge from parent to child.  (We could also see it, with some modifications, as involving mothers and daughters.)

A scenario is presented in which the father is looking out his window and watching the world go by.  He spots “a young man without sense” (v. 7).  He’s wandering through the streets, approaching a particular woman’s house.  I like the image used: “in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness” (v. 9).  Another version says, “at twilight, as the day faded, at dusk as the night grew dark” (Revised English Bible).  To borrow from Shakespeare, “something wicked this way comes.”

What was this young man without sense, this simple boy, doing hanging around in that neighborhood anyway?

When I was young, my mother often spoke pearls of wisdom to me.  One of them referred to doing something “accidentally on purpose.”  Accidentally on purpose.  That might apply to meeting a certain someone, maybe a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, “accidentally on purpose.”  Maybe someone could “accidentally on purpose” forget to attend a meeting they wanted to avoid.

Could it be this young man “accidentally on purpose” wanted to encounter this enticing woman?  We hear the lines from the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, / Prone to leave the God I love.”  Well, if that was the young man’s wish, as the day faded, then his wish was granted.

Regarding Dame Folly herself, I won’t dwell too long on the less-than-delicate details.  Suffice it to say, she wears suggestive clothing and awaits her prey.  Upon spotting him, she “seizes him and kisses him” (v. 13).  She tells him she has just fulfilled her religious obligations, and she has everything prepared for him.  Best of all, she assures him, no one will catch them in the act.  Conveniently, her husband is away on a long trip.

Therefore, Dame Folly says, “Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love” (v. 18).  The other version I mentioned says, “Come!  Let us drown ourselves in pleasure, let us abandon ourselves to a night of love.”  “Abandon” is probably the right word.  The father instructs his son to not imitate him, because he “goes like an ox to the slaughter,” “like a bird rushing into a snare” (vv. 22-23).  He is a moth drawn to the flame.

The father concludes his story, “many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.  Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death” (vv. 26-27).  Eugene Peterson put it in terms quite colorful in his paraphrase The Message: “She runs a halfway house to hell, fits you out with a shroud and a coffin.”

And that’s why it might be a good idea to bring your girlfriend home to meet mother and father!

Now, let’s go from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Lady Wisdom is presented in ways almost parallel to Dame Folly.  They’re like twins whose paths in life have radically diverged.  They both make their appeals to all, especially to the simple.  The two sisters (if I may continue the metaphor), present what they have to offer.  Unlike her foolish counterpart, Lady Wisdom wishes not to entrap, but to enlighten.

She calls out, “O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it” (8:5).  The Hebrew word for “prudence” is עׇרְמׇה (`armah).  It has the connotations of “guile” or “craftiness.”  There’s a sense of “trickery”—but it’s a good trickery, one that doesn’t leave you…well, feeling foolish!

Lady Wisdom is able and willing to go where Dame Folly is unable and unwilling to go.  Folly—foolishness—can offer short-term excitement, a short-term sense of well-being.  Wisdom hangs in for the long haul.  Folly is a fair-weather friend.  Wisdom is there in both good times and bad.

“Wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her” (v. 11).  All that glitters is not gold.  (Thinking about my mom has me dispensing all sorts of sage knowledge.)  “I, wisdom, live with prudence” (v. 12).  There’s our Hebrew friend prudence again!  More than we might realize the Lord surprises us.  We think what we want turns out to be less than the best, even positively harmful, but the Lord tricks us (remember, tricks in a good way!)—the Lord amazes us and gives us something beyond belief.

So far, we’ve seen wisdom personified, as Lady Wisdom.  With verse 22, wisdom seems to almost leap off the page and be considered as a divine life form.  No longer personified, wisdom is something greater, though not necessarily female.

Here’s a quick word of explanation.  Hebrew, like Spanish for example, has masculine and feminine nouns.  The Hebrew word for “wisdom” (חׇכְמׇה, chakmah) is feminine.  That’s not the only consideration.  Some speak of the so-called masculine and feminine in God.  Some even imagine Lady Wisdom portrayed as a goddess.

She says of herself, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.  Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (vv. 22-23).  We get a story reminiscent of Genesis.  The word for “set up” (נׇסַךְ, nasak) literally means “poured out.”  That is, poured out, as in the pouring out of the Spirit.

She says she “was daily [the Lord’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (vv. 30-31).  This is a picture of uninhibited, unrestrained joy.  It is the oblivious wonder of children, the abandonment to astonishment.

Dame Folly urges the young man to join her in drowning themselves in pleasure, in abandoning themselves to a night of love.  Of course, there’s no mention of consequences.  To modify the tourist slogan, “What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.”

At the end of the chapter, Lady Wisdom says, “Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.  For whoever finds me finds life.…  all who hate me love death” (vv. 34-36).  Whoever hangs around wisdom finds life.  How different are the ones who hang around Dame Folly.

Del Hungerford speaks quite literally of hanging around wisdom.  She says, “I’m standing in a clearing in a forest, looking up at the sky, watching clouds dance to the music in heaven.  Everything reacts to the worship, and I love to watch how it all responds.

“After a moment, I sense Wisdom next to me.  Together, we enjoy the activity in the atmosphere around us.  I think of teachings about getting to know Wisdom.”[1]

She really is listening to wisdom.  Earlier, I spoke of thinking about what we want.  Wisdom issues a warning.  “Remember, the motive is always known.  If the motive is incorrect and people are lazy or want it for selfish gain, it won’t do them any good.”[2]  Dame Folly whispers in our ears.  Something might be good, in and of itself, but it might not be good for us—at least, not at that time.

Wisdom continues, “Also, remember that for those constant requests ‘I must have…’  When they get what they ask for but their character doesn’t match, it will destroy them…  When people’s motives are not pure, too much of a good thing can have a very devastating effect…”

Ask yourself this question, ‘Do you want something because you’re trying to gain a position in the earthly realm, or are you trying to build relationship with YHVH [Yahweh] and then out of that relationship, you’re given responsibility?’”

She replied, “I think I’d rather have the second choice since relationship is most important.  When you understand true character, you know what to expect.”[3]

Along with Lady Wisdom, Jesus also speaks as the very voice of divine wisdom.  As wisdom incarnate, Jesus is humble, not “loud and wayward,” as is Dame Folly.  He presents a model of being teachable, heeding Lady Wisdom’s call to “take my instruction.”

The best teachers always practice the art of teachability.  Here’s one example among many that comes to mind: the professor of the one economics course I took in college did not seem to practice that art!  He would get visibly irritated if he had to answer more than one or two questions during a class period.  His philosophy was to just plow through the material, whether or not the students knew what in the world he was talking about.

It seems our culture increasingly is becoming one in which asking questions is discouraged.  A society like that is ruled by fear.  Honesty isn’t encouraged; compliance is.

The best teachers remain open to new ideas.  That’s especially evident in Jesus’ encounters with society’s outcasts.  I think Jesus not only gives benefit, but receives benefit, by his interaction with the poor and the unwanted.  He learns things that the high and mighty can never understand.

I asked, “What does wisdom look like?”  Consider this.  What positions have we rethought and changed our minds about in the last few years?  What does this say about us and our journey?  I can think of a couple of changes I made in the past year, although it wasn’t entirely of my own choosing.  At some level, the decision was made for me.  I think I just needed to say, “Yes.”

Without going into all the details, I can say I’ve come to agree with those I once thought of as disagreeable and to disagree with those I once thought of as agreeable.  In a sense, I have repented—which doesn’t have to carry some dark, heavy weight of turning from evil to good.  It simply means “to turn” or to “change one’s mind.”[4]

Back to Hungerford’s encounter with Wisdom.  Wisdom wondered if she was concerned about gaining worldly position or developing a relationship with God.  As you recall, she preferred the relationship.

That is the call of wisdom; wisdom wants to know us.  “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (8:17).  Wisdom is calling for us.  Wisdom is calling our name.  We develop our relationship with wisdom.  We develop our relationship with the Lord.  It is a lifelong quest.  Out of that relationship, as noted, we are given responsibility.

We are responsible to each other.  We are to speak words that “are righteous,” with “nothing twisted or crooked in them” (v. 8).  Whether it’s accidentally on purpose or deliberately on purpose, we are called to lift each other up, to pray for each other and to be a help.

I will close with a prayer from the website, Missionaries of Prayer.  This is titled, “Ask for Wisdom.”[5]

Holy Spirit, bring revelation to me on where I am stuck.  Show me the places where I need to leave.  Relationships that I need to leave.  Groups or movements that I need to leave.  Mindset that I need to leave behind.

I ask you now for a fresh start.  Give me wisdom to know the next step to take.  Where do I go from here?  How do I move forward?  Lord, I quiet my heart and listen for your still small voice as you guide me and lead me into a year of wholeness and peace, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

[1] Del Hungerford, Accessing the Kingdom Realms (CreateSpace Publishing, 2017), Kindle edition, Chapter 13, section 1, paragraphs 1-2.

[2] Hungerford, 13.1.9

[3] Hungerford, 13.1.10

[4] שׁוּב (shuv) Hebrew and μετανοια (metanoia) Greek, respectively

[5] www.missionariesofprayer.org/2022/01/prophetic-word-ask-for-wisdom/

We’ve noticed how this strange new world in which we find ourselves, courtesy of COVID-19, has brought us to a relative standstill, though some places are standing still more than others.  Each of us has taken notice of that reality, sometimes in quite trivial ways.  (I was alarmed when the NHL suspended its season!  But the alarm has turned to elation since they have decided to have the playoffs!)

[photo by Jason Mowry on Unsplash]

Banu and I were discussing certain realities in the church.  We are aware that we’re in an in-between time.  (Never has interim pastor training been more spot-on!)  What is happening now?  What will happen when “this” is all over?

In my Easter sermon, I addressed this very thing.  “There has been much discussion about getting back to normal (post pandemic) and how long it will take before it happens.  I don’t believe it will ever happen.  If we somehow pretend to go back to the way things were, we’ll be fooling ourselves.  These events are happening; there’s nothing we can do to change it.  The question will be if we learn from this—if we allow the Spirit to teach us.”

Has a reset button has been given to us?  What would it mean to hit it?  One of the scripture texts for Trinity Sunday is the conclusion of 2 Corinthians.  In 13:11, the apostle Paul says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell.  Put things in order…”  It’s probably best to read that as a passive instruction.  “Be restored to order.”  Be restored.  Permit yourselves to be set straight.

It appears to be increasingly certain that this coronavirus is here to stay.  We need to make long term plans, not simply knee-jerk reactions.  Unless we are prepared for chaos around the globe (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit!), our economic, political, and even spiritual mindsets need to change.

Is there any wisdom we can glean from Paul’s use of that single Greek word, καταρτιζω (katartizō)?  Surely “be restored to order” can be seen as applying, to not just our relationship with other humans (be they in the church or not), but to our relationship with the earth itself.  It better be—no, it must be—if we are to live within our calling to be stewards of God’s good creation.

It looks like global climate change has taken on a whole new dimension.  Planet earth is calling “timeout.”

[Gregg Popovich, awesome coach of the San Antonio Spurs, calls timeout]

Maybe hitting the reset button will become a daily exercise.  And to be honest, doesn’t that reflect teachings handed down through the centuries?  For example, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon (who were facing their own strange new world), “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (29:7).  Every morning, when they woke up, they had to hit the reset button.  They had no choice.  Still, the prophet of God encouraged them.  He assured them that was the way to life.

If human history—if church history—is any guide, the changes we need to make are usually the ones forced on us.  But so be it.  May the Spirit lead, by any means necessary, the restoration required to live and to prosper in this crazy new age unfolding before us.

On the night of November 12, 1995, I walked home from the Baskin-Robbins where I worked while at seminary in Philadelphia.  Banu and a friend of ours were in the apartment.  I went to the bedroom and sat down.  Very soon, I entered what was like a waking dreamlike state.  The air seemed almost tangible.

I’m not sure how much time went by, but the next thing I knew was Banu looking at me, saying she had been calling me.  She had a look of concern on her face, and before I knew it, paramedics were taking me by ambulance to the hospital.  By the time we arrived, I was completely lucid.  After examining me, the doctor suspected I might have a blood clot.  After testing, they discovered I had a brain tumor, so that meant surgery, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy (a lot of chemotherapy).

I was left with a scar on my head where the incision was made.  I took to wearing a bandana, first to protect the incision, and then to hide the scar.  (By the way, I had bandanas of many different colors!)  Three months later I was in our apartment with Banu and another friend, and the same thing happened.  It turned out to be a staph infection—so another surgery, with the incision in the same place.  This time, the scar was more pronounced.  It was quite visible.

(I took to dividing my life into BC and AD, based on that first surgery on the 14th: Before Cancer and After Diagnosis.)

As I mentioned, I would wear a bandana on my head, and I did that for two and a half years, well after it was medically necessary!  Of course, the radiation caused me to lose my hair, but that wasn’t the main reason I wore them.  I didn’t like that scar, and I didn’t want other people to see it!  Even after we went to Nebraska to serve our first church, I still wore them for over a year.

I think I could describe that time with the bandanas as a liminal time or a liminal space.  What, you may ask, is “liminal”?  It comes from the Latin limen, which means “threshold.”  We’re familiar with the word “subliminal”—below the threshold.

As Richard Rohr puts it, “Liminal space… is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next…  It is a graced time, but often does not feel ‘graced’ in any way.  In such space, we are not certain or in control.  This global pandemic we now face is an example of an immense, collective liminal space.”[1]

His friend Sheryl Fullerton says of liminal space, “The old touchstones, habits, and comforts are now past, the future unknown.  We only wish such a time to be over.  We may be impatient to pass through it quickly, with as little distress as possible, even though that is not likely.”[2]

Liminal space is often not much fun at all.  We might compare it to the pain of growing up.

If we handle this liminal space well, we are more open to developing, to discovering.  We allow “room for something genuinely new to happen.”  Actually, it’s going to happen anyway.  It’s a question of will we welcome it, or will we be dragged kicking and screaming!  I think my refusal to discard the bandana was a sign of kicking and screaming.  I was reluctant to say goodbye to that part of my life.  (The BC.)  I would never be the same again.  But guess what?  That’s okay!

I began with this rather lengthy introduction, as trivial as it might seem.  I want to draw an analogy to a passage in the book of Acts.  The story of Stephen reflects a dramatic shift in the life of the early church.  There is indeed a liminal space, an in-between time, in which change darlin’, is a-comin’.  The church will never be the same again.

In chapter 6 we see what’s coming down the pike.  Verse 1 says, “Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists [that is, the Greek speaking believers] complained against the Hebrews [who actually spoke Aramaic] because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.”  The ethnic balance is shifting; the demographics are changing.

The church leaders see trouble on the horizon, so they arrange for “seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” to whom they can entrust this ministry of social justice, this ministry of compassion (v. 3).  One person stands out, our dear friend “Stephen, full of grace and power, [who] did great wonders and signs among the people” (v. 8).

He draws the wrong kind of attention.  Stephen is becoming a pain in the rear end for many of the powers-that-be.  He is hauled in to appear before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council, and give an account for himself.  For most of chapter 7, he gives a history lesson, starting with Abraham.  Things are going well until he gets to the temple, saying, “the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands” (v. 48).  The folks he’s talking to do not want to hear that.

But he goes even further.  “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.  Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?  They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers” (vv. 51-52).  They really do not want to hear that.

And so we get to the point where they see red and start grinding their teeth.  Things are looking grim for Stephen.  He’s in for a world of hurt.  That change in the church I mentioned earlier—that liminal space and time—is now coming into sharp focus.

Joel Kime comments on this.  “Right at that moment, something amazing happens, an astounding event that can help us learn to think differently when we are in the middle of pain.  Stephen, as we read in verses 55-56, has a vision of God.  And what’s more, he has the audacity to tell the people what he sees!  What can we learn from this?  Though he was facing a perilous reality, Stephen is 100% focused on God.  In the midst of his liminal moment, he was still attuned to God.”[3]

That’s what I touched on earlier.  That “not yet” time can bring with itself confusion, anguish, suffering, maybe even embarrassment.  Stephen is a good role model.  “What can it look like for us to focus on God, right in the middle of the uncertainty, the pain, the struggle?”

Again, that can involve us as individuals, a family, a church, or indeed the whole world.  This time of coronavirus is a time of wearing the bandana.

Stephen rips off his bandana.  As he prepares to meet his Maker, he prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  And then, in Jesus-like fashion, while drawing his final breath, he cries out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (vv. 59-60).

While all of this is going on, we’re introduced to “a young man named Saul.”  He’s keeping watch over of the coats of those throwing stones.  He gives a thumbs-up to the entire affair.  In The Message, Eugene Peterson put it this way: “Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.”

Here’s where we get to another of those liminal spaces, those liminal times.  Brutal persecution breaks out, with Saul doing his part by hauling believers to prison.  Again, here’s how Peterson put it: “And Saul just went wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail.”  I often wonder how I would fare under such vicious treatment.  Would I cave in and renounce the faith?

After this baptism of fire, “those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word” (v. 4).  When all is said and done, the forces of evil cannot defeat the forces of good.  It might take a long time.  It might take a great deal of perseverance, but those who stand will be empowered by the Spirit.

In these strange times, we are being called to persevere.  We are leaving one way of being and will be emerging into a future that has yet to be revealed.

Fullerton says, “Like Jonah in the belly of the sea monster, we are led where we do not want to go—not once, but many times in our lives…  In the unknown space between here and there…life happens.  And, if we attend, we can feel the Holy Spirit moving with us in a way that we may not be aware of in more settled times.”

Is it possible, in some bizarre, unwelcome way, the coronavirus can actually be seen as a gift?  Please believe me, it’s not a gift I want!  But it’s here, and there’s not much we can do about it.  We can’t take it back to the store and get a refund.  (Partly because very few stores are open!)

We’re told by Fullerton, “we can learn to let reality—even in its darkness—be our teacher, rather than living in the illusion that we are creating it on our own.”  We encounter “a disturbing time and space that not only breaks us down, but also offers us the choice to live in it with fierce aliveness, freedom, sacredness, companionship, and awareness of [holy] Presence.”

I again find myself being challenged.  Maybe I am wearing that new bandana presented by the pandemic.  Maybe I want to cover up a new scar.  Maybe I’m too slow to deal with the new reality that’s unfolding.  Maybe I’m not the only one wearing a bandana.

However, there are opportunities.  On Easter, my mother and sister, who live in Tennessee, tuned in.  My newfound family in Florida did the same.  And of course, we’re joined by the folks in Cohocton every Sunday.  Many of you have friends and family joining us.  That’s just one aspect of these crazy, strange times.

One thing we’re being taught is to slow down.  That comes with its own challenges.  We are being forced to make connections in new ways.  We need to stay true to that, to “live in it with [that] fierce aliveness, freedom, sacredness, companionship, and awareness of [holy] Presence.”

As we accept that unwelcome gift, we can join with Stephen as he proclaims, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

[1] cac.org/between-two-worlds-2020-04-26

[2] cac.org/the-liminal-paradox-2020-04-29

[3] joelkime.com/2020/03/25/what-to-focus-on-when-you-are-in-pain-acts-68-83-part-3

“He was a coward.”  That was Banu’s comment on reflecting how Abram had Sarai pose as his sister.  That is, he had her pose as his sister in order to save his own neck.  Upon entering Egypt, he knew that the Pharaoh’s officials would want to take her, because she was a good-looking woman.

(I’ll use the names they were given a few years later, Abraham and Sarah.)

I will admit that it might be hard to argue with her assessment of Abraham’s decision.  (That is, his being a coward!)  We’ll look at what might have been behind his choice in a few moments.

Once again, and I mention this from time to time, the lectionary compilers tended to edit out embarrassing or troublesome verses.  The reading in Genesis for today ends at verse 4.  Showing one of the great figures of faith like Abraham treat his wife the way he does might not seem especially heroic.  But we need to pay attention to that stuff.  If God’s calling of Abraham is to have any real meaning for us, then we should see how that gets worked out in, say, our own messy and complicated lives.

Still, as I just said, we’ll be getting to the too-often deleted aspect of the story momentarily.

As for the commonly-agreed-upon heroic aspect of the story, it’s not for nothing that Abraham is given the title “Father” Abraham—that the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam trace their history back to him.  The whole thing got started when, somehow, the Lord said to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (v. 1).

What precisely does that mean?  How did Abraham receive that call from God?  Was he hearing voices?  Did he have an exceptionally vivid dream?

Maybe it was a gradually growing awareness.  Some have suggested that Abraham grew disenchanted with the worship that was practiced in his homeland—worship of the sun and moon.  At some point, he couldn’t take it anymore, or perhaps, some people couldn’t take him anymore!

In any event, as one writer tells us, “Abraham’s journey to the Promised Land was…no routine expedition of several hundred miles.  Instead, it was the start of an epic voyage in search of spiritual truths, a quest that was to constitute the central theme of all biblical history.  The all-important commencement is…‘Go forth.’”[1]

The part of the message that seals the deal is in verses 2 and 3: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”  Okay, not bad: God will bless me, and I will bless others.  Now those others get drawn into the picture.  “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

That last line can also be translated as “by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”

What can we make of all that blessing?  As Christians, we stand in that tradition, the blessing of the call of Abraham and Sarah.  It’s important to include Sarah; Abraham could not have done very much without her.  Apparently, one of those things would be using her to make sure he stayed alive while in Egypt!

Verses 2 and 3 promise the blessing of becoming a great nation—of being a conduit of blessing to all the families of the earth.  Being a blessing means several things, among them being a source of good will, a source of shalom, a source of light.

As for that business of the calling of Abraham having meaning for us, Dan Clendenin refers to what he calls “Abraham in Three Movements.”[2]

“God’s call upon Abraham’s life,” he says, “is a call that’s repeated to each one of us today.  It’s a call that subverts conventional wisdom, and so it can feel counter-intuitive, for it’s a call to move beyond three very human, powerful and deep-seated fears—fear of the unknown that we can’t control (ignorance), fear of others who are different from us (inclusion), and fear of powerlessness in the face of impossibilities (impotence).”

Whenever I’ve thought of God’s call to Abraham to “go forth,” I’ve usually had the first of those three in mind.  I’ve thought of the unknown, with whatever fear and foreboding go with it.  He and some close family members are launching out into foreign territory.  This involves a different culture, with unfamiliar customs.  This involves moving from one’s kin, which would leave one vulnerable in many ways.

Clendenin combines the fear of the unknown with fear of others who are different and fear of powerlessness.  He says that Abraham “had to leave not only his geographic place.  He had to leave behind his narrow-minded, small-minded, parochial vision, the tendency in all of us to exclude the strange and the stranger,” the tendency to exclude the alien.

Which of Abraham’s three “movements” speaks most to you: fear of the unknown, fear of those who are different, or fear of powerlessness?  Which of the three would most likely hold you back?  Is there one of those fears that you’ve seen someone else conquer that gave, or continues to give you respect for them?

This speaks to us not only as individuals, but also as a congregation.  The same “movements,” the same fears to confront, affects churches as well.  All of this goes into answering the question, “How are we called?”  We can emphasize different words in that question and come up with different nuances.

Now, as for that apparently less-honorable part of our story, in which Abraham portrays Sarah as his sister, things become a little fuzzy.

E. A. Speiser tells us, “In Hurrian society [Abram was from Haran] the bonds of marriage were strongest and most solemn when the wife had simultaneously the [legal] status of a sister, regardless of actual blood ties. This is why a man would sometimes marry a girl and adopt her at the same time as his sister, in two separate steps recorded in independent legal documents. Violations of such sistership arrangements were punished more severely than breaches of marriage contracts.”[3]

In other words, it’s going to be bad news if you touch my wife, but if you touch my sister, you’re in for a world of hurt!

In fact, Chana Weisberg argues that Abraham showed such respect for Sarah that the question could be asked, “Was Abraham the first feminist?”[4]

I mention all this, though not mainly for judging Abraham’s quality of character.  Instead, I’m wondering if Abraham is being obedient or disobedient to God’s call.  More specifically, I’m wondering if adapting to culture constitutes part of what it means to be called.

Admittedly, it is difficult to compare moral codes.  We are separated, not only by the distance, but by the time—four thousand years.  Their world was quite different from ours.

There’s also the element of desperation.  As verse 10 tells us, after Abraham arrived at his destination, there was a famine.  He was forced to go “to Egypt to reside there as an alien [we’ve just heard that word], for the famine was severe in the land.”  He was a refugee, dependent upon the kindness of others.  Factors beyond his control influenced him, even compelled him.  Factors beyond our control can do the same thing to us.

Still, the question of culture is timeless.  In working out our calling, we always have to deal with the culture around us.  It’s inescapable; we are immersed in our culture and in our subcultures.  Fish in water don’t know they are wet.  (Don’t ask me how I know that.)  Culture shapes how we perceive the world.  That’s why it’s important to learn about other cultures; it helps us to be more objective about our own.  It helps us, as best we can, to stand outside of it and look through the eyes of others.

There is also church culture; there is also congregational culture.  In a congregational system, there are written rules on how to behave, on how things are done.  We have our congregational bylaws.  As Presbyterians, we have our Book of Order.  But there are probably hundreds of unwritten rules on how to behave, on how things are done.  One reason for that is because everyone brings their own culture, their own experiences, to the table.

Imagine a pond on a quiet day.  Now picture throwing a rock into that pond.  The ripples spread out in all directions.  If someone else throws a rock into the pond, the ripples intersect.  Now imagine all of us throwing rocks into that pond.  Ripples are bouncing around everywhere.  Those interactions lead to the unwritten rules.  Otherwise, there is chaos!  (Although, sometimes a little chaos can be a good thing!)

What names, what rules, does our culture give us?  I’m fond of being called a “consumer.”  According to our economic system, my calling is to “consume.”  Maybe it’s just me, but I find that to be more than a little unsettling.

That makes it all the more important to get a handle on the question, “How are we called?”  And going a little further, like Abraham, how are we called to bless?

A few years ago, Banu and I were invited to stay a couple of days at a camp and conference center about an hour’s drive east of Pittsburgh.  We were asked to do some workshops while there.

I did one which was inspired by an instructor I had in Clinical Pastoral Education.  What that meant for me was a student chaplaincy at a hospital, the result of which was my discovery that I was not cut out to be a hospital chaplain!  Still, I’m glad I was required to do it, being mandatory for Presbyterian ordination.  It was a good experience.  I really liked our instructor, although at times he tended to have a bit of a potty mouth!

There was one thing he had us practice which I thought was especially valuable.  He would challenge us to not use “God talk.”  That is, to avoid language that, for example, referenced “God” or “salvation” or “faith.”  It really forced us to stretch ourselves, to dig deep, to say what we meant by those words.

You might find this impossible to believe, but there are people who have actually had bad experiences with church or with Christians.  “God talk” can be a trigger for all kinds of negative stuff.  And then, there are those who simply don’t know what we’re talking about.

So that was my challenge to the folks at camp: describe your faith without using “God talk.”  For instance, what does “Jesus saves” mean?

Some of them welcomed the test and gave it a good “faith” shot!  For others—not so much.  And when I started pushing them on it, some got irritated; it was even written on their faces.  Some of them let me know their displeasure.  They were not happy with me.

I observed how reaching out to those outside the four walls might mean learning a different language.  I don’t know if they didn’t believe me or just didn’t care.  It does require change.  Do you know what we call something that doesn’t change?  Dead.  Life, by its very nature (even at the chemical level), requires change.

For many of them, they just wanted to have a nice, relaxing weekend with their friends.  They didn’t need to be given this bit of uncomfortable work.  In my defense, this little exercise didn’t even take a half hour, but that was enough to tick them off.

(There is a nice postscript to this story.  That night, they broke out the board games.  Even the folks who got annoyed with me were happy when I joined in.  Playing games can be incredibly therapeutic!)

I will freely admit, it is not easy for us church people to avoid using “God talk.”  It is not easy at all.  It’s not easy for me.  Again, it forces us to explain what we mean.  But it is well worth the effort; it is well worth practicing.  It helps us to speak with others with understanding and one hopes, with compassion.

In the end, this business of culture pays off well for Abraham (and dare I say, Sarah).  He entered Egypt without; he is leaving Egypt with—a lot!  The chapter closes, “Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had” (v. 20).  He’s on his way, following the call to “go forth.”  It’s central to how he is called.

How are we called?

[1] E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 88.

[2] www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20080211JJ.shtml

[3] Speiser, 92.

[4] www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/2235031/jewish/Was-Abraham-the-First-Feminist.htm

When I was a little boy, there was a time when I was afraid of mirrors.  Mind you, it wasn’t because I was afraid of my reflection, though I wasn’t in love with it, either!  No, my fear was based on the boogeyman of youthful imagination, the boogeyman of horror movies.  One reason I think horror movies are so scary to little kids is because they live so much in the moment, and they think—no, they know—those things in their nightmares really exist!

Anyway, after becoming familiar with vampires, besides drinking people’s blood, a quality I found especially creepy was their invisibility in the mirror.  Especially at night, I dreaded looking in the mirror.  A vampire could be standing right behind me.  And what really freaked me out was the thought of something tapping me on the shoulder.

But I was also terrified that I would see something behind me.  It could be anything: some grim beast or somebody wielding a dagger.  Who knows what one’s mind can conjure up?

In today’s epistle reading, St. James has his own thoughts about mirrors.  His fear however, is not that people are afraid to look at them.  Rather, his concern is their power to deceive, or maybe it’s better to say, the power people have at self-deception.  Hold that thought; we’ll do more reflecting on mirrors in a few moments.

The epistle of James, in some respects, is unlike anything else in the New Testament.  It has characteristics similar to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.  That includes the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, many of the Psalms, and much of the book of Job.  Like those works, James has many lessons and words of wisdom.

(By the way, Jesus Christ is only referred to twice.  Only 3 John has less, where he isn’t mentioned at all.)

Our passage begins in verse 19: “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  On that bit about “slow to speak,” the 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard makes an embarrassing confession.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

“I have just returned from a party,” he says, “of which I was the life and soul; wit poured from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me—but I went away—and the dash should be as long as the earth’s orbit—[inserted in the text is a dash taking up almost half the page] and wanted to shoot myself.”[1]

He knew he’d been behaving like a horse’s (fill in the blank).  Has anyone here ever felt like that?  I know I’m not the only one who’s had a moment of sane and sober self-reflection and thought, “I really wish I hadn’t said that”?  I sure made of fool of myself.

Speaking of being a fool, Father Richard Rohr (who I’ve mentioned before) outlines what he calls three gates through which the words of a wise person must pass.  This is basically his take on a saying from the Sufi tradition regarding speech: “Is it true?  Is it necessary?  Is it kind?”

So for him, “the first gate: Is what I’m saying really true?  If it’s not true, then, of course, don’t bother.

“The second gate: Is it loving?  Am I about to say something that will build up life and trust, or will it tear them down?

“The third gate (and probably the most difficult): Is what I am about to say really that necessary?  If it’s not, why clutter up the moment with more words and noise competing for space and attention?”[2]

Now those are words of wisdom.  Assuming the first gate has been successfully traversed (that is, are my words true?), we come to the second gate.  It might be true, but is it loving, is it life-enhancing?  It is possible to speak the truth, but in a way that is not helpful; in fact, it can be hurtful.

Our Book of Order begins with a section called “The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity.”  Believe it or not, it has all kinds of good stuff.  Under the heading “Historic Principles of Church Order” is the lovely little paragraph on “Truth and Goodness” (F-3.0104).  It begins by saying, “truth is in order to goodness.”  That means even the truth must serve the good.  It must promote goodness.

As just suggested, it is possible to tell the truth with the purpose of crushing someone, beating them down.  The truth can be told with malevolent intent.  I call that “the devil’s truth.”  It’s meant, as I just said, to hurt and not to help.  To the extent it does that, it really isn’t the truth.  It isn’t God’s truth.

So we come to the third gate.  Even if it’s true and it’s loving, is it so important for me to throw in my two cent’s worth?  Do I (always) need to draw attention to myself?  Do I need to ruin the silence?  I suppose we need to decide if we are earnestly trying to be constructive or merely engaged in self-promotion.

There’s plenty to say about being “quick to listen,” but right now I want to be “slow to anger.”

There are many ways it can raise its hopping mad head, but there’s one I want to mention, infecting our culture.  Our beloved news networks, particularly the ones on cable, seem to enjoy generating plenty of heat, but not much light.  They don’t seem to be overly interested in actually educating their viewers.  Too often they seem interested in hammering home their viewpoints in red-faced rants.  “Where’s the outrage?”

It might help for everyone to take a deep breath, count to ten, and then think before we speak.  How’s that for being “quick to listen”?

Our friend James adds, “your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.  Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls” (vv. 20-21).  There’s plenty to say about that, but as promised, I want to move on with our reflection on mirrors.  Please bear in mind, we need to carry all of that wisdom we just heard when we gaze into the mirror.

He talks about “the implanted word,” and it’s the word of which we need to be doers “and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (v. 22).  Here’s where that self-deception I mentioned earlier comes into play.  A mirror, figuratively speaking, can show us the way we wish to see ourselves.  Looking into it, we can highlight some qualities in an unrealistic way.  (Unfortunately, it’s often true we can see ourselves as less than, as worse than, we truly are.  We can beat ourselves up.)

James’ call to be quick to listen must also be translated into action.  We can behold ourselves in the mirror and get a good look, and upon walking away, forget what we just saw.

There’s a reflection on these verses called, “Seeing Ourselves in the Mirror of the Word.”[3]  Our good friend, Kierkegaard—the one with the embarrassing story about the party—is quoted in it.  Stephen Evans, a professor at Baylor, is an expert on the Great Dane.  He says, “The fundamental purpose of God’s Word is to give us true self-knowledge; it is a real mirror, and when we look at ourselves properly in it we see ourselves as God wants us to see ourselves.”

Inserting the world “properly” makes a big difference.  As just said, we can see ourselves for better or worse than we really are.  Perhaps seeing ourselves as better, as overinflating, means we have arrived; there’s nothing more to learn.  Seeing ourselves as worse might lead us to think there’s no point in trying; we’re going to fail anyway!

Continuing with his thought, “The assumption behind this is that the purpose of God’s revelation is for us to become transformed, to become the people God wants us to be, but this is impossible until we see ourselves as we really are.”  By the grace of God, we have a clear image of who we are—or at least, as clear an image as we mere mortals can have.  We aren’t left in the dark like those vampires.

Here’s verse 25: “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.”  What is “the perfect law, the law of liberty”?  James says in chapter 2, “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (v. 8).  The royal law, the perfect liberating law, is the law of love.  Love makes demands of us like none other.

It can be awfully easy to look into that mirror and say, “Okay, that’s who I am,” and then walk away and forget all about it.  But I know, nobody here has ever done that!

Still, if we hold to it, if we keep at it, we will be blessed in our doing.  I like the late Henri Nouwen’s take on blessing and being blessed.[4]  “To bless means to say good things.  We have to bless one another constantly.”

(That is “bless one another”—not “bless one another out”!  And as some folks say in the South, “Well, bless yo’ heart!”  Please note: that is not an affirmation!)

Nouwen continues, “Parents need to bless their children, children their parents, husbands their wives, wives their husbands, friends their friends.  In our society, so full of curses, we must fill each place we enter with our blessings.”

What does that blessing look like?  James describes true religion, true faith.  We’re back to the bit about “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  Bridle your tongue; don’t deceive your heart.  Care for those in need.  What about caring for those who do not know the Lord?  Or maybe, do not know in a way that makes the Lord a reality in their lives?

So much requires change—not something we readily embrace.  Still, life is, by its very nature, change.  Something that doesn’t change is dead.  The law of liberty, the law of love, is reflected in that mirror held before us.  That calls us to change.  What happens after that?  As the chapter ends, again by the grace of God, we “keep [ourselves] unstained by the world” (v. 27).  We have a resource, a substance, to clean up the uncleanness we accept from the world around us.

The hymn, “What Can Wash Away My Sin?” does a pretty good job explaining it.  Here’s the refrain: “O, precious is the flow / That makes me white as snow; / No other fount I know, / Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”  Oddly enough, with the blood of Jesus we are washed white as snow!  Our stain is removed.

We are shown the mirror of the word, and we find love in the mirror.

[1] A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), 7.

[2] Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2010), 341.

[3] www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/174976.pdf

[4] henrinouwen.org/meditation/blessing-one-another

“O God, we pray Thee for those who come after us, for our children, and the children of our friends, and for all the young lives that are marching up from the gates of birth…  We remember with a pang that these will live in the world we are making for them.  We are wasting the resources of the earth in our headlong greed, and they will suffer want…  We are poisoning the air of our land by our lies and our uncleanness, and they will breathe it.

“…Grant us grace to leave the earth fairer than we found it; to build upon it cities of God in which the cry of needless pain shall cease; and to put the yoke of Christ upon our business life that it may serve and not destroy…”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969)

Those are words from a prayer by Walter Rauschenbusch; they date back to 1910—over a century ago.  They’re in a book published in 1917, Harry Emerson Fosdick’s The Meaning of Faith.^[1]  It was published during what came to be known as “the Great War” and “the war to end all wars.”

Human knowledge and technology during the latter part of the nineteenth century had reached new heights.  However, as we might know all too well, knowledge and wisdom rarely progress at the same rate.  The so-called “civilized” nations were plunged into what Fosdick calls “the most terrific war men ever waged, when faith is sorely tried and deeply needed.”^[2]

So far, the twenty-first century has amply demonstrated that lack of wisdom in dealing with conflict, at the international level and elsewhere.  To the unknowns of this unfolding century, the impulse to respond with fear is always present.  The future can be seen as a void, filled with darkness.  We have to be cautious of morbid or despairing outlooks that expect disaster and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s like the “law of attraction,” which can go under various names.  It’s the idea that whatever we project into the world, the universe, the ether, is what we attract.  I’m reminded of the verse in Titus which goes, “To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure” (1:15).

To this vision of darkness, we need something that’s light.  Literally.  Epiphany, which falls on Saturday this week, is all about light.  It’s all about the glory of God shining in Jesus Christ.  It’s all about the appearance, or manifestation, of Jesus to the Gentiles—to the world.  Our word, “epiphany,” comes from the Greek term επιφανεια (epiphaneia), which appears in several places, such as 2 Timothy 1:10, where we learn that “grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing [or through the epiphany] of our Savior Christ Jesus.”

Our gospel reading, the visit of the Magi, is the primary image of Epiphany.  The Magi were more than likely Zoroastrian priests, the ancient faith of Persia.  They’ve been called “wise men,” “kings,” “astrologers.”  But whatever you call them, they’re the first Gentiles in the Bible to see the Christ child.

They notice a star which they interpret to signify a special birth.  So off they go to Judea, asking questions about “the child who has been born king of the Jews” (v. 2).

The guy currently claiming that title, Herod the Great, gets nervous when he hears about it.  (His campaign pledge was “vote for me, and I will bring you cruelty and paranoia.”)  Learning from the religious leaders the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, he wastes no time and sets up a secret meeting with the Magi.  Herod wants to know two things.  When did you first see the star?  Will you find the child and let me know where he is?  “After all, I want to pay my respects, too!”  (Wink, wink.)

The Magi, upon finding the young Jesus and offering their presents, have a dream telling them, “Don’t go back to Herod.”  So they leave for home, taking the bypass around Jerusalem!

Herod tries to stamp out the light that the Magi found.  Not simply a light in the sky, the light they found is the one who enlightens all of humanity.  The deeper we go into the epiphany of Jesus, the more wonders we find.

There’s another meaning to epiphany, which I imagine we know.  It has the sense of a sudden awareness of truth, a flash of understanding.  It’s when the light goes on.  Eureka!

I want to tell you a story.  It didn’t happen to me, but I think I can identify with John Artz, the one it happened to.  It’s the story of a personal epiphany.^[3]

He says, “I suppose that most people never bother themselves with questions about the meaning of life.  I, on the other hand, can’t seem to think of much else.  One day as I was driving home, I filled the empty moments with musings about the possible meanings of life.  As the car bottomed in a dip and began to pounce over the next rise, I turned the wheel to the left and leaned into the turn to overcome the centrifugal force.

“Then it came to me in a flash.  There were four principles basic to all aspects of life.  These four principles could be combined in various ways to explain everything—why we are here, what we should do, why we are the way we are—every nagging question I had ever pondered.

“It was an epiphany.  It was one of those two or three seconds in your life when it all makes sense.  When you are one with wisdom and understanding.  When there is no more asking, only doing.  I raced through examples in my mind to come up with something that these four principles did not explain, but I could find nothing.

“‘Well,’ I thought. ‘I’d better write these down before I forget them.’  I had had moments of insight before and knew how quickly they could evaporate.  I steered with my left hand and rummaged through the glove box with the other, looking for something to write with.  I looked through every cubby hole in the car but there was no pen to be found.  I looked around and realized that I was just minutes from home and that I could preserve the insight by just repeating it to myself for a few minutes.  Once in the door, I would head to my desk and jot down these ideas before they decayed.

“I pulled into the garage, turned off the ignition, pulled up the emergency brake, left the car and headed for the door.

“When I opened the door, the kids were fighting over a [video] game.  The cat was tormenting the fish.  And my wife started rattling off a list of everyone who had called and left messages.  Then she asked me what I wanted for dinner.  I chased the cat away from the fishbowl, tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement between the kids, and then turned to my wife and said, ‘What are the choices?’

“By the time I got to my office only a few minutes had passed, but the inspiration had disappeared like a dream upon waking.  It left a residue of that feeling of understanding, but nothing to hang that understanding on.

“Many times I have reenacted that car trip in my head trying to recall the four principles but the muse of understanding never returned: until yesterday.  As I drove home yesterday the insight returned—not the four principles, but the understanding.  The significance was never in the four principles, but in the story about them.”

For our friend, what were most important weren’t the particular ideas he came up with; it was the process itself.  It was the experience of having the light come on, of experiencing an epiphany.  Returning to the biblical understanding, what matters is experiencing the light—the glory—of God in Jesus Christ.  And when that happens, the principles, the insights, the vision—all of that comes with it.  We’re changed for the better.

Thinking again about the Magi, we know that they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod to report the location of Jesus.  Instead, as the scripture says, “they left for their own country by another road.”  I believe they did just that.  But I wonder if that statement isn’t true at another level.

These men had no idea what they would find when they set out on their journey.  The Magi were accustomed to associating with those in positions of power.  Surely the star they saw promised a change in regime, perhaps one who would bring even mighty Rome to its knees.

Who could know that the king of the Jews would turn out to be the humble child of a poor family—a family which soon found themselves fleeing their homeland, fearing their rulers, becoming refugees?  And who can say how meeting this family effected these wise men from the East?  Perhaps in leaving “for their own country by another road,” the Magi also were choosing another path in life.

Epiphany reminds us that the light of Christ is for the entire world.  And it’s also an experience of light that’s deeper than the words we use to describe it.  Our words, our language, about God and Jesus and life in general give us a picture of reality.  We talk about things; we use names, but that’s not the same thing as actually meeting them, experiencing them.

The light sneaks up on us; it takes us unaware.  It’s such a joyful, shocking, unexpected source of grandeur.  The darkness of Fosdick’s warning loses its gloom.  Our poor, stumbling lives are radiantly exposed by something wondrous and holy. 

When we encounter the humble, holy child, we are changed—and we’re challenged.  We see, by the light of the Epiphany of the Lord, our own lack of humility; we see our own arrogance.  But thanks be to God, into the darkness that wants to enshroud us, Jesus says, “Let there be light!”

^[1] Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Faith (New York:  Association Press, 1917), 60.

^[2] Fosdick, vii.

^[3] gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~jartz/alter/stories/epiphany.html

“The present form of this world is passing away.”

The autumn equinox is September 22.  (At least, that’s in the northern hemisphere.  In the south, it is the spring equinox.)  The equinox is the time of year when the sun’s light is spread evenly over the entire earth.  For us, the days become shorter until we reach the winter solstice, when we start the process all over again, as the days begin getting longer.

For many, the gathering darkness spells a sense of gloom.  As the leaves give way to frost, a sense of solemnity becomes more evident.  But it need not be a time for sorrow—there is great joy in solemnity.  We are reminded of the impermanence of all things.  And that too is a note of joy.  Without dying, there can be no rebirth.

And yet, autumn is also a time for beginning.  A new school year commences.  The world is once again clothed in gold and orange.  It’s time to play football!

The spirituality of autumn speaks of transition and balance.  Just as the leaves flutter to the ground, autumn is a time for letting go.  There is indeed a transition from the fire of summer to the ice of winter.  It is a time of balance between day and night, between light and dark.

Wesley Baines poses an interesting question.  “How can we get in touch with the spiritual side of autumn in our contemporary age?”  Hmm, how indeed?  He suggests, “By being mindful and being present.  Turn off your devices and simply take a walk.”  Wait!  Turn off my phone?  God forbid!  “Make your pilgrimage of leaves, being mindful of the color of sky and grass and leaf and stone, of the feel of the air, of the scents and textures and sights all around you.”  I’m sure others are better at taking this advice (that is, letting the experience fill them with a sense of presence) than I am.

He continues, “Pay attention to what nature is doing around you—after all, everything has a purpose, including the changing of the seasons.  They remind us to keep changing, to not allow ourselves to become stagnant.”

How is it with us?  Are there things we need to shed?  No, forget that.  What things do we need to shed?  What things do we need to let go of?  What is holding us back?  This speaks to our interim, transitory time.  It speaks to all of our lives as human beings.

As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, “The present form of this world is passing away” (v. 31).  We sometimes think of “the end of the world as we know it.”  (TEOTWAWKI)

Autumn teaches us the lesson of not hanging on to the moment.  Let the Holy Spirit guide us as the wind which blows the leaves.  Learn to dance with the leaves and then say goodbye, as we welcome the frost.